The article investigates the relationship between GDP and prices in Italy in the long-run, from the country's Unification (1861) up to present day. By using the new national accounts data, over the period 1861–2012, we were able to make Italy the third country to have a historical test of the...

The article responds to Daniele and Malanima’s harsh criticism (Perché il Sud è rimasto indietro? Il Mezzogiorno fra storia e pubblicistica, Rivista di Storia Economica, 2014, n. 1) of my last book (Perché il Sud è rimasto indietro, Il Mulino, 2013), about the reconstruction of regional...

The last decades have seen a flourishing of new indicators to measure economic progress, but none of them has succeded in replacing GDP. Why? The article reviews what are arguably the three most successful alternatives to GDP (the Human Development Index, the Genuine Progress Indica-tor, and the...

This paper presents the new yearly series of the value-added of services for Italy, from 1861 to 1951, at current prices. For each sector, after discussing sources and methodology, the results are compared with the early Istat (1957) series. By looking at the production value of specific...

With the end of the celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, the availability of a large body of new historical statistical data calls for a redefinition of the features of Italian economic growth. The paper presents new estimates – at both national and regional...

In this chapter I discuss historical estimates of GDP at both the national and the regional level, and their application for assessing economic performance in modern times. Having been invented in (and conceived for) industrial capitalist societies, GDP has stronger informative power in those...

The article aims to present and discuss estimates of levels of human and social capital in Italy's regions over the long term, i.e. roughly from the second half of the nineteenth century up to the present day.  The results are linked to newly available evidence for regional value added in order...

Abstract (English) In recent years there have been major advances in our historical knowledge of regional disparities in Italy; as a consequence, the debate on the causes of the North-South divide (and thus, ultimately, on strategies and possibilities to overcome it) has also revived. By mainly...

The article reconsiders the growth of Italian industry from the First World War to the eve of the economic miracle, with the aid of sector-specific new value-added series, at three different price-bases. The new estimates reduce growth during the First World War, making the Italian case...